Listening to young people: The Big Questions Survey July 2022

Listening to young people: the Big Questions survey June/July 2022

“We need better support with our mental health.”

“We’re worried about the rising cost of living.”

“We feel heard by our Foyers and we’re ready to make change happen.”

These are the key messages young people told us in our recent Big Questions survey, which was answered by 124 young people living in 14 of our member services throughout June and July 2022.

Mental health is consistently one of the key concerns for young people living in supported housing. 77% reported that it is one of the three biggest challenges they face – a far higher number than the second greatest challenge of housing (44%). 45% told us that they’re still feeling the negative impact of the pandemic on their mental health, and we saw a notable increase in the number of young people sharing concerns about other current events such as war, uncertainty about the future of human rights in the UK and the recent political climate.

For the first time in the life of the Big Questions survey, however, mental health was unseated as the number one worry for young people. The worry most young people report is the rising cost of living. 44% said this was a worry for them, up from just 8.5% in November 2021. 31% said it’s one of the biggest challenges they face, up from 4%. Having an improved financial situation was the second most common wish made for the year ahead.

A positive drawn from the survey is the impact of Foyers listening consistently and continuously to young people. We saw an increase in the number of young people who see things change when they speak up – 68%, up from 58% in November 2021. 76.2% of young people want to be involved in shaping the services they live in, and 40.4% are interested in taking on a level of leadership to make this happen. We were also thrilled that 90.9% of young people asked could identify at least one time in their lives that they feel powerful – up 5% from the previous survey.

Drill down into the data by downloading our report for staff, which explores the responses to each question and shares some insights into learnings.

To read more about the key takeaways and what the Foyer Federation is doing to act on these insights, read our ‘you said, we did’ report. This bite-sized response is designed to be shared with young people too, to close the feedback loop.